SotS 2 Info

[Mist]

No, judging from the flow of things on the message boards, not yet. It's a bit like a Russian Roulette, you're either in that 20% that doesn't experience significant stability issues, or you crash to the desktop. A lot. And a lot of the features ( and in-game help ) is still not functional. If you want to buy it and don't mind Steam*, it looks like a prospect for Christmas.

*Yes, I know that in theory it's an activation only, practice says no DLC without Steam running

[Tyrmith]

Why exactly do people not like steam? I've never really had to use it, so not really exposed to potential problems.

[Mist]

It's like IE6. It's ubiquitous, not really user-friendly or convenient, it does not improve a lot from user perspective over time. It also used to have atrocious customer service which burned a lot of people who do not want to go back now. In some 10 years everyone will probably curse the day it was born

I personally like to have an option of refund or resale of new title if I don't happen to like it, $60 is maybe not that much, but enough for me not to risk it on PR hype and dubious reviews without a fallback option. You can't obtain a refund or trade games on Steam.

[spellman]

It's like IE6. It's ubiquitous, not really user-friendly or convenient, it does not improve a lot from user perspective over time. It also used to have atrocious customer service which burned a lot of people who do not want to go back now. In some 10 years everyone will probably curse the day it was born

At the risk of making this a Steam debate derail, I'd say it's not terribad and given a worse rap than it deserves.

It's basically taken over the market, which makes some leery (omg monopoly). There's still a bunch of misplaced suspicion from when it was a really bad rootkit many, many years ago. And yes, it does act as pseudo-DRM. I think the biggest mark against it is as Mist said you can't really resell.

That being said, I haven't had too many issues with it (except for the stupid offline mode) and overall it's nice to keep your catalogue in one spot, and the auto-patching and exposure its given to F2P and Indie games has really transformed the market. Plus it's often got the best discounts on the market (typically thanks to competition like Impulse and D2D) and really nice integration with the Friends system.

[Zed-F]

Steam used to be somewhat nasty but pretty much all the major issues with it have been solved over the years. Now the only real remaining consideration is whether you hate DRM with a passion (for pure steamworks games) or are holding onto a grudge (as many people seem to do.)

As far as SotS2 goes, the game is playable for most people if you know what bugs to watch out for and how to avoid them. There are plenty of people playing games into the hundreds of turns. But if you don't want to bother figuring out how to figure out avoiding the worst remaining bugs (and I wouldn't blame you) then I would still wait a bit longer. Probably around Christmas the game will be much improved and have all the major stability issues fixed and missing gameplay pieces added back in, though there will still likely be a lot of tweaking and improving in general remaining to do.

[Zed-F]

KP has said they have definite plans to send out the news far and wide when they think the game is "ready" -- presumably meaning at the quality level they were originally aiming to be at for release, with all missing features present and accounted for and all known crash problems sorted out. So for anyone waiting on that point before picking up SotS2, it sounds like you won't have to guesstimate based on forum feedback (unless of course you want to!)

http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...95#p349695

Otherwise, KP continues to release multiple patches a week to iron out bugs and re-add missing content the game, as promised. A largish update is expected tomorrow, and this week the trade feature is expected to be added back in (with further trade improvements to come next week.)

[Sareln]

KP has said they have definite plans to send out the news far and wide when they think the game is "ready" -- presumably meaning at the quality level they were originally aiming to be at for release, with all missing features present and accounted for and all known crash problems sorted out. So for anyone waiting on that point before picking up SotS2, it sounds like you won't have to guesstimate based on forum feedback (unless of course you want to!)

http://www.kerberos-productions.com/foru...95#p349695

Otherwise, KP continues to release multiple patches a week to iron out bugs and re-add missing content the game, as promised. A largish update is expected tomorrow, and this week the trade feature is expected to be added back in (with further trade improvements to come next week.)

A month on I'm curious to hear the opinions of people who care about this game and ask what it's status is like. If it comes up on a winter-sale, would it be worth it to buy? How responsive has KP managed to be after a month of grind for their dev-staff? What's forum morale like?

[Tyrmith]

Looking on the forum there is this post from Mecron.

[Zed-F]

Kerberos have said they will be making an "all clear" post when the game is in release-ready state. Of course this does not mean completely bug free, but it means feature complete (with possibly one or two exceptions) and fully playable.

That post has not yet been made. Kerberos hopes to be able to make said post before Christmas, but they are not quite at that point yet. I've been holding off on any discussion or even starting a serious game I intend to finish until then.

[spellman]

So, it's on the daily sale today for Steam. But now, wait for patching laters?